:00:47. > :00:51.Afternoon. Welcome to the Daily Politics. I hereby declare that
:00:51. > :00:55.Michael Douglas Thornton is duly elected member of Parliament for
:00:55. > :00:58.Eastleigh. Thank you. The Eastleigh is beastly for David Cameron, the
:00:58. > :01:04.Liberal Democrats hold the constituency, the Conservatives are
:01:04. > :01:07.pushed into a humiliating third place. UKIP come second recording
:01:07. > :01:11.their best ever by-election performance picking up almost a
:01:12. > :01:17.third of the vote and proving they are a serious threat to the
:01:17. > :01:21.Conservativeings.. 6 There is no Southern Comfort for Ed Milliband
:01:21. > :01:26.as Labour fails to increase its share of the vote, coming a poor
:01:26. > :01:34.fourth. We will bring you the reaction to a vintage style by-
:01:34. > :01:44.election. All that coming up, with us for the
:01:44. > :01:46.
:01:46. > :01:51.duration today, Gabby hins live, political editor at large. Andrew
:01:51. > :01:56.Pierce, consultant editor at the Mail. Who consults you? I consult
:01:56. > :02:00.the editor. To find out what to do? Yes. That is how you keep your job.
:02:00. > :02:04.Welcome to the programme. It was the result David Cameron was dread,
:02:04. > :02:08.there was a time only a few weeks ago when the Tories thought they
:02:08. > :02:12.could win Eastleigh. They didn't. Worse, they came third. It the sort
:02:12. > :02:15.of seat the Tories have to win if they are ever to win an overall
:02:15. > :02:21.majority in the common, so this morning there was nothing left to
:02:21. > :02:25.do, but to wheel out the brave face. It's a disappointing result for the
:02:25. > :02:30.Conservative Party, but it is clear in mid-term by-election, people
:02:30. > :02:34.want to register a protest, but I am confident that at the general
:02:34. > :02:38.election we can bin these people -- win those people back bishop
:02:38. > :02:41.demonstrating we are delivering for everyone who wants to work hard and
:02:41. > :02:44.get on. We are devoting most of the programme to discussion of last
:02:44. > :02:49.night's result. So for now one thought from both of you about the
:02:49. > :02:52.significance. The moment for you? It is the moment we learned yet
:02:52. > :02:56.again how much people hate mainstream politicians, not just
:02:56. > :03:00.because you have the UKIP surge, people are fed up with both parties
:03:00. > :03:03.of Government and opposition, how low an opinion of politicians do
:03:04. > :03:07.you have to have that your local MP is headed to jail and that doesn't
:03:07. > :03:12.put you off voting for the party? It is an interesting thought. Is it
:03:12. > :03:16.going to be, as the Liberal Democrats would like it to be, lots,
:03:16. > :03:20.hundreds of local by-elections, at the next general election, rather
:03:20. > :03:24.than the national view? That is what they will hope. I suspect it
:03:24. > :03:28.won't work like that, this was a classic Liberal Democrat victory.
:03:28. > :03:33.For the Conservatives say it disaster, because they, it shows
:03:33. > :03:38.they have massively failed to connect with their grass roots
:03:38. > :03:43.supporter, their core supporters have been alienated by David
:03:44. > :03:51.Cameron and they staid at home or voted for UKIP. UKIP pose a danger
:03:51. > :03:56.to the Tory party as the SDP did to the Labour party. Not a great night
:03:56. > :03:59.for Labour. You can't come fourth and that is a great night. A lot of
:03:59. > :04:02.voters very fed up with the government, looking for someone to
:04:02. > :04:09.blame. Looking for someone to register a protest and they didn't
:04:09. > :04:13.choose Labour, that is worrying for Ed Miliband. You wouldn't want to
:04:13. > :04:17.be Mill's strategist from last nights. Anyone's from last night.
:04:17. > :04:22.There is no chance of that. Now, at the start of this campaign, as I
:04:22. > :04:26.said the Tories thought they were in with a chance they threw the
:04:26. > :04:31.kitchen sink into the constituency, but somehow the Tory campaign never
:04:31. > :04:36.took off, what did take off was UKIP, which surged through taking
:04:36. > :04:40.votes from the Liberal Democrats and from the Tories and after three
:04:40. > :04:46.week, although not quite enough of a surge to win, it was enough to
:04:46. > :04:49.throw the Tories into third place. Tell us more. Eastleigh son the
:04:49. > :04:54.Conservative's list of target seats they must win in 2015 to form a
:04:54. > :04:58.imagine si Government. Last night's by-election results make grim
:04:58. > :05:01.reading for David Cameron. The qifrts optimistic at the start.
:05:01. > :05:04.Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne vacated the seat after
:05:04. > :05:08.pleading guilty to perverts the course of justice. The Liberal
:05:09. > :05:12.Democrats have had consistently poor national poll ratings, then
:05:12. > :05:15.the troubles surrounding former Liberal Democrat Chief Executive
:05:15. > :05:19.Lord Rennard emerged. Despite these problems the Liberal Democrats held
:05:19. > :05:23.the seat. Albeit with a much reduced majority. Not that Nick
:05:23. > :05:28.Clegg will care today. Even more troubling for the Conservatives
:05:28. > :05:33.though, is UKIP's performance. Nigel Farage's party finished
:05:33. > :05:37.second, with 25% of the vote. Their biggest ever share in a by-election.
:05:37. > :05:44.And they got 1,000 votes more than Maria Hutchings the Conservative
:05:44. > :05:48.candidate who finished third. That was a result that we asked senior
:05:48. > :05:52.Conservative backbench David day vabtsd on Wednesday's programme.
:05:53. > :05:57.You come second or maybe terrible suggestion, third, I suggest you
:05:57. > :06:03.again, crisis for Cameron? If we came third it would be a cry stha,
:06:03. > :06:08.is the case, but, if it is a close second, with UKIP on our tail, it
:06:08. > :06:12.will be uncomfortable. Let us be clear, this is not going to
:06:12. > :06:18.dislodge David Cameron, he will be will to the next election, it will
:06:18. > :06:28.make things more uncomfortable. we are joined by Anna Soubry.
:06:28. > :06:33.Welcome to the programme. 2.20am March 1, 2013 all Tory hopes of an
:06:33. > :06:37.overall imagine any the Commons died? You think so I think we all
:06:37. > :06:42.have to get real about by-election, especially in a seat held by
:06:42. > :06:47.Liberal Democrats, and for give me, I have fought two marginal seats so
:06:47. > :06:51.I think I come at at it from a different perspectives. I know
:06:51. > :06:56.about helping out. The Liberal Democrats, especially in a seat
:06:56. > :07:00.like this where they have been for many year, they started off with, I
:07:00. > :07:03.think almost every single borough kounslo, I know from my own
:07:03. > :07:06.experience the huge power that gives you, when you that
:07:06. > :07:11.entrenchment many your community, I know because I have fought marginal
:07:11. > :07:16.seerbgts you need the when you are up against, in a marginal seat.
:07:16. > :07:20.to get a majority you need to win 20 Eastleigh, they are all like
:07:20. > :07:26.that, the last time. I don't think it saz simple as that. The last
:07:26. > :07:30.time you won an overall majority it was Eastleigh. You have not won an
:07:30. > :07:34.overall majority, you couldn't win it in a by-election. Can I explain
:07:34. > :07:39.why. When you are fighting Liberal Democrats who are well entrenched
:07:39. > :07:44.who operate in a way that is Admiral, you can't knock their
:07:44. > :07:46.machinery, when you are up against that, especially when you have a
:07:47. > :07:50.very sensible, home-grown candidate like they had, I am not saying the
:07:50. > :07:54.others weren't very good. All the candidates were very good, the
:07:54. > :07:59.quality, apart from Labour's but that is me making a quick sharp
:07:59. > :08:02.point. It is not that sharp. It is not that clever, really. They
:08:03. > :08:08.selected an outstandingly good candidate for them and what they
:08:08. > :08:11.needed to do and they pulled it off. Privately, because you don't say it
:08:11. > :08:14.publicly at the start of a campaigns privately we knew it
:08:14. > :08:18.would be almost impossible, not withstanding the circumstances of
:08:18. > :08:21.the by-election, to win it, because we know how well entrenched they
:08:21. > :08:25.have been in that constituency over decades now. So let us get this
:08:25. > :08:29.right. You always thought you couldn't win the constituency, even
:08:29. > :08:33.though this was a by-election being fought as a result of the sitting
:08:33. > :08:39.Liberal Democrat MP... Going to prison. Probably going to prorpbgs
:08:39. > :08:42.and then a sex scandal, being a Liberal Democrat... I didn't know
:08:42. > :08:46.that. A sex scandal which became a crisis of the leadership for Mr
:08:46. > :08:51.Clegg, and you still couldn't win. Because you have to understand, as
:08:51. > :08:53.I am sure you do, a number of factor, one yor, you have the
:08:53. > :08:58.Liberal Democrat factors secondly you have the by-election factors
:08:58. > :09:01.and I thought some of the points Michael Gove made on the Today
:09:01. > :09:05.programme were absolutely on the money, got it absolutely right.
:09:05. > :09:09.About an increasing number of the electorate, ordinary people who are
:09:09. > :09:13.fed up with all of us, and you have the protest vote, which you always
:09:13. > :09:17.get in by-election, that used to go to the liberals, which is why they
:09:17. > :09:21.are successful, going to UKIP, for reasons I can understand, then you
:09:21. > :09:24.have got to factor in the fact that the Liberal Democrats held almost
:09:24. > :09:28.every single seat on the borough Cowen sism I am, this isn't a
:09:28. > :09:32.criticism, why would you know this? Unless you have fought a marginal
:09:32. > :09:35.seat as I have done, unless you understand how those seats work,
:09:35. > :09:40.and the importance of good local councillor, you can't understand
:09:40. > :09:45.why you get the results like Eastleigh. You are right. We
:09:45. > :09:53.haven't fought a marginal see. It maybe important but on this result
:09:53. > :09:57.are toast. This is a majority... toast? I Amor than well aware of my
:09:57. > :10:01.slender majority, I understand why it is the small numbers it S I
:10:01. > :10:06.fought an encumbent, one of the great things that came out of the
:10:06. > :10:11.2010 election was an of the power of that. My brilliant colleague
:10:11. > :10:17.Jessica Leigh, I won't try to put her down, got a fantastic result
:10:17. > :10:22.and a fantastic swing. One of the reasons that she did so well, as
:10:22. > :10:28.did Mark, I can't remember his name, Mark Spencer in Sherwood, they
:10:28. > :10:32.weren't standing against incumbents, if you speak to Mark, if Paddy
:10:32. > :10:37.Tipping, if the Labour endumb bent had stood like mine, Mark would be
:10:37. > :10:43.the first to say Paddy would have won. You saw it where Vernon Coaker
:10:43. > :10:48.did stand... Are you going to mention any names we haven't heard
:10:48. > :10:53.of? It is good bluster but let us get to the chase. I want to ask you
:10:53. > :10:57.a question. You have had a good say, you are not going to filibuster
:10:57. > :11:02.your way out, your election strategy, your party's election
:11:02. > :11:05.strategy involves winning 20 seats like Eastleigh to get an overall
:11:05. > :11:09.majority. Forgive me I think we have a Liberal Democrat list and a
:11:09. > :11:13.marginal. Everything you have just said, about not winning Eastleigh
:11:13. > :11:17.is why you will not win the other Liberal Democrat seats as well,
:11:17. > :11:21.therefore you get no overall majority. The point I was going to
:11:21. > :11:25.make, I think we have a list of Liberal Democrat seats swre, a
:11:25. > :11:29.target Liberal Democrat seat list and a target Labour Tory marginal
:11:30. > :11:34.list and one that is overall. I am not sure where Eastleigh is on that.
:11:34. > :11:40.16 on both. On the combined or on the Liberal Democrat? 16 you have
:11:40. > :11:42.to win from the Liberal Democrats. When you drill down into it. We do
:11:42. > :11:48.do that, we look at the personalities, especially in
:11:48. > :11:53.Liberal Democrat seats. You need to win the 20 to have any chance of an
:11:53. > :11:57.overall majority.. I agree with you in your analysis, when you factor
:11:57. > :12:03.in the by-election, then, it takes on a tote, you take it out of
:12:03. > :12:06.context, that is what I am trying to say. You couldn't win it at a
:12:06. > :12:12.tpwhrebgshurpbgs you can't win it at a by-election, you can't win. I
:12:12. > :12:17.would suggest to you, that you have no chance, no chance of winning
:12:17. > :12:21.Eastleigh in the 2015 general election. You might be right,
:12:21. > :12:25.because it is a Liberal Democrat seat. It is one you have targeted
:12:25. > :12:29.that you need the win. Yes, but then as we also know as you go into
:12:29. > :12:34.a general election, the complexities of a general election
:12:34. > :12:42.change almost from one constituency to another because of this
:12:42. > :12:46.encumbency factors I would say to all kphenta to, and you heard them
:12:46. > :12:50.talking about the encumbency project, where they understand and
:12:50. > :12:54.recognise the huge power now of that, you saw that in the borough
:12:54. > :12:57.council elections as well. Forgive me, I hate to say it, everything
:12:57. > :13:01.you say, it means it is Mission Impossible to dislodge 20 Liberal
:13:01. > :13:07.Democrats to give you an overall majority, in that is the case, what
:13:07. > :13:12.is Mr Cameron perceived as such a loser? I don't believe he is.
:13:12. > :13:18.has never won an election. Hang on, forgive me, I will not sense and
:13:18. > :13:21.will not allow it, you are entitled to say it, but you are wrong,
:13:21. > :13:25.fundamentally wrong. I am wrong he has never won an election?
:13:25. > :13:29.suggest that the backbenchers do not support the Prime Minister is
:13:29. > :13:35.wrong. Really? There maybe some that don't but the over
:13:35. > :13:38.Westminstering majority of MPs in the Parliamentary party... You are
:13:38. > :13:43.so divided, you wouldn't appear with Mark Pritchard. No, I have
:13:43. > :13:49.never, no, I have never ever gone blue on blue, and anybody will tell
:13:49. > :13:55.you the same thing as well. None of us will do it. Because you are
:13:55. > :14:00.divided? It is not good for the party a divide party never wins the
:14:00. > :14:05.respect of an electorate. wouldn't do it is a signal of howdy
:14:05. > :14:09.vieded you are. It has never been any different in the way I will
:14:10. > :14:13.operate, I will not do blue on blue. You can have the final word. I
:14:13. > :14:17.presume we are giving up on winning Liberal Democrat seats at all. The
:14:17. > :14:22.logic if you can't win a seat with a Liberal Democrat, you can't win a
:14:22. > :14:25.seat with an incumbent you will end up with the same number of seats.
:14:25. > :14:30.On Tuesday, there was an opinion poll in one of the papers putting
:14:30. > :14:40.the Liberal Democrats on 8%, the lowest ever they have ever had
:14:40. > :14:44.
:14:45. > :14:48.nationally. And yet still they You have played a straight bat and
:14:48. > :14:52.England may be calling on you to open the batting. In England is not
:14:52. > :14:56.that desperate! I thought we were doing well in the cricket. England
:14:56. > :15:01.is doing well, unlike the Conservatives.
:15:01. > :15:07.We are joined now by Ben page of the polling firm Ipsos MORI. How
:15:07. > :15:13.great was that win for the Liberal Democrats? As Andrew Pierce said,
:15:13. > :15:16.they were polling badly nationally. Yes. Most pollsters, including me,
:15:16. > :15:21.believed the Liberal Democrats would do much better than their
:15:21. > :15:24.current rating in the national polls for a general election,
:15:24. > :15:28.partly because of their incumbency and also because the Liberal
:15:28. > :15:34.Democrats, when it comes to a fight, are ferocious. They did of course
:15:34. > :15:39.lose a lot of share in this vote, but given the size of their
:15:39. > :15:47.majority, he enough to hang on. They got 23% of the vote in 2010.
:15:48. > :15:54.It will go down, but not to 9%. It might go down to 16%. This seems to
:15:54. > :15:58.confirm that theory. It is not brilliant news for them. They lost
:15:58. > :16:03.14% of the vote -- if they lost 14% of the vote in many other seats,
:16:03. > :16:09.there would be out. But it is much worse for David Cameron, and Ed
:16:09. > :16:13.Miliband might have hoped to do better. By what about you could?
:16:13. > :16:16.They did not win the seat, but they will no doubt say they were the
:16:16. > :16:21.winners of the night. They were certainly the surprise of the night.
:16:21. > :16:25.I was not expecting them to do quite so well. 1000 more than the
:16:25. > :16:29.Conservatives. They are still an unknown quantity. They are not
:16:29. > :16:33.winning lots of councillors in local elections. They are almost
:16:33. > :16:36.like the Liberal Democrats used to be, the people you can vote for in
:16:36. > :16:41.by-elections because it will not make much difference. They
:16:41. > :16:45.represent a constituency in British politics, which is people who are
:16:45. > :16:49.fed up. Their boat is very concerned about things like
:16:49. > :16:54.immigration. They tend to be older. There is a whole range of people
:16:54. > :17:00.out there, but those they most threaten our of course David
:17:00. > :17:04.Cameron and his chance of a Conservative majority in 2015.
:17:04. > :17:08.damaging is it for David Cameron? Again, with by-elections, you need
:17:08. > :17:11.to be careful about making generalisations. It is more
:17:11. > :17:14.problematic for David Cameron in terms of party management. This
:17:14. > :17:21.will be crying out to many people on the right of his party, there
:17:21. > :17:25.will say, if only you had tacked right, things would be better. But
:17:25. > :17:29.Cameron's brigade will say, we tribe that in 2005 with Michael
:17:29. > :17:33.Howard and it did not work. The Conservatives may become divided as
:17:34. > :17:37.they try to read the runes of this, but it was a by-election.
:17:37. > :17:41.Labour MP said it was a disaster for Labour. In it certainly was not
:17:41. > :17:45.good news. This was not ever going to be a Labour seat, but Ed
:17:45. > :17:50.Miliband should have been hoping the One nation message was somehow
:17:50. > :17:53.cutting through. John O'Farrell is a great comedian. Whether he is the
:17:53. > :17:58.right candidate for this type of seat is another matter. But this is
:17:58. > :18:01.not brilliant news for Labour, who think they are surging back into
:18:01. > :18:04.middle England. They do need to be there.
:18:04. > :18:08.We are joined now by a Tory backbencher Mark Pritchard. What
:18:08. > :18:12.mood are you in this morning? Are you going to tell us what you
:18:12. > :18:17.really think, or have you swallowed a loyal to Bill? Well, it is
:18:17. > :18:21.clearly a disappointing result, but it is the mid-term blues, by-
:18:21. > :18:25.elections are unpredictable and many of us always thought this
:18:25. > :18:31.would be a difficult by-election to win. So the loyalty pill has kicked
:18:31. > :18:38.in. I am one of the most loyal Tory backbenchers. It just happens that
:18:38. > :18:41.on the EU referendum and the Budget, I disagree with the Prime Minister.
:18:41. > :18:46.David Davies told the Daily Politics that if the Tories came
:18:46. > :18:50.third, it would be a crisis for Mr Cameron. Do you agree? I don't
:18:50. > :18:57.think it is a crisis. This is a difficult period for the
:18:57. > :19:01.Conservative Party. I don't think this result, extrapolated to the
:19:01. > :19:04.general election, will necessarily be the same. We are making progress
:19:04. > :19:07.on education and welfare reforms and deficit reduction. On
:19:07. > :19:11.immigration, we have had excellent numbers over the last few days,
:19:11. > :19:17.perhaps not in time for this by- election. If we continue to make
:19:17. > :19:22.progress on those issues, people will see that we are a party that
:19:22. > :19:26.can deliver and hopefully deliver more if we have an outright
:19:26. > :19:32.Conservative majority. But prior to the by-election, Your leader came
:19:32. > :19:37.out front in out referendum. He moved to appease the Euro-sceptic
:19:37. > :19:40.wing of his party. You chose a Euro-sceptic candidate, someone who
:19:40. > :19:47.said she would vote to leave unless a lot of powers were repatriated.
:19:47. > :19:53.Much good it did you. Well, UKIP are now the natural party of
:19:53. > :20:00.protest. The Liberal Democrats have lost that crown. There are
:20:00. > :20:06.challenges ahead. But once the message off our welfare reforms,
:20:06. > :20:10.education reforms, making progress on immigration, ones that get out
:20:10. > :20:14.over the next two and a half years, people will look again. One good
:20:14. > :20:19.thing is that people will hopefully now begin to scrutinise what you
:20:19. > :20:27.could stand for. If you look at their manifesto, they are pretty
:20:27. > :20:33.much offering champagne all round. They want tax cuts for everybody. I
:20:33. > :20:37.don't say we should not learn lessons from this, but it is more
:20:37. > :20:41.of a political tremor rather than an earthquake. The but it is a
:20:41. > :20:45.problem for you, because if you really want to leave the European
:20:45. > :20:50.Union, you vote UKIP. If you want a tough line on immigration, you vote
:20:50. > :20:55.UKIP. If you are against gay marriage, you vote UKIP. If you are
:20:55. > :21:00.in favour of grammar schools, you vote UKIP. You don't vote Tory.
:21:00. > :21:04.That is the lesson of Eastleigh. The Prime Minister is the first
:21:04. > :21:10.British Prime Minister to offer an in-out referendum on the European
:21:10. > :21:18.Union. That is a significant step. Those people who are Euro-sceptic
:21:18. > :21:22.within UKIP don't want to see a pro European, someone who is against a
:21:22. > :21:26.referendum, against giving the people a choice, against taking
:21:26. > :21:31.back British sovereignty. That person is Ed Miliband. The real
:21:31. > :21:36.problem on Europe is for the Labour Party. We are the and the party of
:21:36. > :21:40.potential government that can offer an in-out referendum. The Labour
:21:40. > :21:42.Party are not offering that. If people want to vote UKIP and
:21:43. > :21:49.getting a pro-European Ed Miliband as prime minister, they are
:21:49. > :21:54.entitled to. The at given that you could's appeal is on more than just
:21:54. > :21:57.Europe - back UKIP's appeal is on more than just Europe, it is on the
:21:57. > :22:01.other issues I mentioned. The centre-left vote was split in the
:22:01. > :22:05.'80s between the Social Democrats and the Labour Party, giving your
:22:05. > :22:10.party over a decade of large majorities. You are now split on
:22:11. > :22:15.the right, with a strong party on the right picking off your right
:22:15. > :22:20.wing flank and splitting the centre-right vote. That is why we
:22:20. > :22:28.need to make the case for lower immigration and set out our message.
:22:28. > :22:33.The figures are down from 247,000 the year before last. What about
:22:33. > :22:38.the Romanians and Bulgarians? hope to have a backbench business
:22:38. > :22:48.debate on this issue. Their controls end at the end of December
:22:48. > :22:49.
:22:50. > :22:59.this year. Those policies need to be realistic and achievable. The
:23:00. > :23:01.
:23:01. > :23:07.Prime Minister is chairing a cross- party group on this. There is a
:23:07. > :23:13.weakness in what Mark is saying. It is very easy for UKIP in the by-
:23:13. > :23:15.election. The Government will not say how many Romanians and
:23:15. > :23:20.Bulgarians they think will come into Britain next year. Ministers
:23:20. > :23:24.refused to answer the question. UKIP can then say, if you vote for
:23:24. > :23:28.us, none of them will come in, because we will take Britain out of
:23:28. > :23:32.the European Union. Labour were saying this morning as well that
:23:32. > :23:38.they need to address immigration more seriously. They say that after
:23:38. > :23:43.every by-election. The only people with a clear answer to this are
:23:43. > :23:48.UKIP, whether you agree or disagree. They say, we will not be in the
:23:48. > :23:52.union, so we will control our borders. I am not sure if every
:23:52. > :23:55.party can move to where you could is. A but you cannot stop the
:23:55. > :24:00.Romanians and Bulgarians. They have a right to come to this country
:24:00. > :24:05.under the rules of the EU, just as we have a right to go there. You
:24:05. > :24:09.can't change that. I would like to see control of our borders. That
:24:09. > :24:14.does not mean we shut the borders to everybody. We need a sensible
:24:14. > :24:18.immigration system. But you can't do that as a member of the EU.
:24:18. > :24:24.is why I am pleased we are having an in-out referendum in 2018.
:24:25. > :24:30.late. They will all be here! agree. And they could be a huge
:24:30. > :24:34.asset, just like the Poles who came. Five years is too long to wait to
:24:34. > :24:40.can -- to take control of our borders. You would like a
:24:40. > :24:43.referendum soon know? Absolutely. Keep taking the pills.
:24:43. > :24:48.Now, let's turn to the big winners from last night, although they did
:24:48. > :24:52.not win the seat. UKIP leader Nigel Farage joins me now from Eastleigh.
:24:52. > :24:58.It was an impressive performance, but as the Liberal Democrat
:24:58. > :25:02.President has said, you did not win. It was an average second. It was
:25:02. > :25:06.quite an impressive second, really. A very short by-election, called
:25:06. > :25:12.with three weeks' notice, very sudden. We did not have time to get
:25:12. > :25:16.to the postal voters, and still we went from 3.6% to 28% of the vote.
:25:16. > :25:20.That is a significant surge by anybody's standards. The three
:25:20. > :25:23.other parties are absolutely stunned by it, but it is because we
:25:23. > :25:27.are connecting with ordinary families. They can see the impact
:25:27. > :25:31.open-door immigration has had on jobs and housing in constituencies
:25:31. > :25:35.like this. All the rubbish we have heard in the last week from Cameron
:25:35. > :25:40.and everybody else that they will get tough, the fact is that if we
:25:40. > :25:44.want to control our borders, we cannot do that as members of the
:25:44. > :25:49.European Union. I think that penny has dropped with the electors of
:25:49. > :25:57.Eastleigh. But you still did not win. There is no UKIP MP. When is
:25:57. > :26:02.there going to be one? We have just had our best ever by-election
:26:02. > :26:06.result. We have run the Liberal Democrats close. On the day
:26:06. > :26:10.yesterday, we actually won. In terms of the people who voted on
:26:10. > :26:15.polling day, we did not have the ability to reach the postal voters.
:26:15. > :26:20.But never again can people say UKIP is a wasted vote. Never can people
:26:20. > :26:24.say we are splitting the vote. And never can people say that somehow,
:26:24. > :26:29.UKIP can't win, because we came ever so close to winning in this
:26:29. > :26:33.by-election. In by-elections to come, we will achieve victories.
:26:33. > :26:38.This is not just some mid-term protest, this is a clear trend. We
:26:38. > :26:42.have seen it in by-elections in Barnsley, Middlesbrough, Rotherham
:26:42. > :26:47.and now here. Isn't it a protest vote? You took votes from all the
:26:47. > :26:51.parties, not just the Conservatives. That would be classic protest
:26:51. > :26:55.politics. You took votes from the Liberal Democrats and Labour, too.
:26:55. > :27:01.When it comes to the general election, the line from the Tories
:27:01. > :27:04.will be simply that a vote for UKIP will give the seat to Labour.
:27:05. > :27:09.Conservatives in a general election will vote Conservative. But no one
:27:09. > :27:13.will believe that. This Tory idea that you could just takes votes
:27:13. > :27:17.from the Tory party is rubbish. One of the most significant sections of
:27:17. > :27:20.people voting for us yesterday were people in Eastleigh who had not
:27:20. > :27:26.voted for anybody for 20 or 30 years, and they voted UKIP
:27:26. > :27:30.yesterday. That is a vote by people saying, I like what this party says.
:27:30. > :27:35.They have the guts to stand up and campaign on tough issues while
:27:35. > :27:42.everybody else tries to push it under the carpet. Are you the new
:27:42. > :27:47.Liberal Democrats in terms of winning by-elections in the future?
:27:47. > :27:56.Over the last two years, we have gone from getting 2% in by-
:27:56. > :27:59.elections to 15% to 20% and now loony 30%. -- nearly 30%. Nobody in
:28:00. > :28:05.Westminster was to recognise it. There is a closed shop in British
:28:05. > :28:10.politics amongst the parties, the media and the public companies, but
:28:10. > :28:15.something will is happening. People are going out and vote in UKIP, and
:28:15. > :28:25.I believe that trend will continue. Judge me on May 3rd. We have the
:28:25. > :28:29.English council elections coming up on 2nd May. Judge me on 3rd May.
:28:29. > :28:32.That will be an important test, because you have not won lots of
:28:32. > :28:39.council seats in the past. You have said to me yourself, you have not
:28:39. > :28:44.got that local base, so it will be a big test. Very much so. When the
:28:44. > :28:49.Liberal Democrats were winning by- elections in the '90s, they had
:28:49. > :28:53.already built up a base at district and county council level. We have
:28:53. > :28:56.not done that yet, and to have come as close as we did to winning
:28:56. > :29:02.without a single councillor in Eastleigh makes that score last
:29:03. > :29:06.night even more remarkable. We have to make breakthroughs Indies may
:29:06. > :29:11.county council elections. UKIP already has a candidate for every
:29:11. > :29:15.seat. We have the European elections coming up in June 2014.
:29:15. > :29:25.If what happened last night was a tremor in British politics, next
:29:25. > :29:32.
:29:32. > :29:36.year in the European elections, we Do you regretted not standing?
:29:36. > :29:41.I don't. Firstly we had an excellent candidate. If I had stood
:29:41. > :29:45.and done well, you would have said this just reinforces the fact UKIP
:29:45. > :29:49.is a one man party. No-one is going to say that any more. Thirdly, as
:29:49. > :29:52.leader, I want to be a candidate that leads the party into the
:29:52. > :29:56.European elections next year, because I believe we have a
:29:56. > :30:02.realistic chance of topping the poll, across the United Kingdom.
:30:02. > :30:06.Gabby, do you want to ask anything? .If you don't come top, can we
:30:06. > :30:11.conclude you are a busting flush? If we come second, nationally,
:30:11. > :30:15.indeed as we did back in 2009, I would be disappointed. Not to have
:30:16. > :30:19.won. Listen, I am not contemplating that, I think we can really do it
:30:19. > :30:24.next year, because vague promises at referendum in five years' time,
:30:24. > :30:28.or whatever it may be, simply isn't good enough. I think the fact that
:30:28. > :30:33.on January 1st next year we are opening our door, unconditionally
:30:33. > :30:38.to 29 million poor people from Romania and bull -- Bulgaria, it is
:30:38. > :30:42.something most people say enough is enough it is time we got control
:30:42. > :30:50.back op of our borders and our country. What did you drink to
:30:50. > :30:55.celebrate? Sadly, not enough! I didn't get back to the hotel until
:30:55. > :30:59.4.00 and I was doing my first television interview at 6.20, but I
:30:59. > :31:09.intend, now, after this interview, to go and catch up. I feel so sorry
:31:09. > :31:12.for you, what a tough night it has been. Go and celebrate. He won't be
:31:12. > :31:18.seen until Monday now. I don't think all 29 million are going to
:31:18. > :31:22.come. A lot might come but I don't think 29 million. I may be wrong
:31:22. > :31:25.but I don't think so. One of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats
:31:25. > :31:30.are pretty cock-a-hoop this morning is not just they won, but they won
:31:30. > :31:35.even though it has been a pretty torrid ten days for them in the
:31:35. > :31:38.run-up to last night's vote, so no surprise, it was a mightly relieved
:31:38. > :31:44.Nick Clegg who appeared at a victory rally in Eastleigh this
:31:44. > :31:47.morning. This has been a by- election we have had to fight, in
:31:47. > :31:52.exceptionally difficult circumstances. Our opponents have
:31:52. > :31:58.thrown everything at us. We held our nerve, we stood our ground, we
:31:58. > :32:07.worked as a team, we went out and campaigned on every doorstep, we
:32:07. > :32:10.overcame the odds and won a stunning victory. And we are joined
:32:10. > :32:16.by the Liberal Democrat whip in the House of Lords Dick Newby. Welcome
:32:16. > :32:20.to the Daily Politics. Now you won the seat, impressive victory, many
:32:20. > :32:26.think, but of course your share of the vote dropped more than the
:32:26. > :32:30.Conservative share of the vote dropped. Would you put that down to
:32:30. > :32:34.the Chris Rennard controversy or the Chris Huhne confrov? I think
:32:34. > :32:39.there were a number of head wind we were battling, a governing party at
:32:39. > :32:44.this point when the economy is not doing well, is going to be in
:32:44. > :32:47.difficulties. The Chris Huhne con-- controversy lost us some votes and
:32:47. > :32:50.no doubt the Chris Rennard controversy lost us some more, I
:32:51. > :32:54.think if you had asked virtually anybody yesterday, Liberal Democrat
:32:54. > :32:59.or anybody else, would we win by over 1700 votes they would have
:32:59. > :33:03.said no. You exceeded your expectations you think? It exceeded
:33:03. > :33:09.mine, having been done in Eastleigh. Was there any time in the campaign
:33:09. > :33:13.when you thought, this might be going bad for us? I think the, the
:33:13. > :33:18.thing that slightly surprised and worried me about Eastleigh was the
:33:18. > :33:21.way in which people, for whatever reason, had a difficulty with the
:33:21. > :33:24.Liberal Democrats, whether it was about Chris huerpbgs as one person
:33:24. > :33:28.had, or it was about the economy, which another person had, they had
:33:28. > :33:32.decided that they were going to -- Chris Huhne, they were going to
:33:32. > :33:35.vote a protest vote and they all vote one way, they vote for UKIP.
:33:35. > :33:42.One of the interesting things to me, is that none of them voted Labour.
:33:42. > :33:47.As far as I can tell. They all vote UKIP. Not very many. Not many
:33:47. > :33:49.Liberal Democrats went to Labour. UKIP did pick up people who were
:33:49. > :33:56.dissatisfied about anything. And it was obviously an impressive
:33:56. > :33:59.performance, but that was my concern. Looking back, the two main
:33:59. > :34:03.features of the campaign, one was the Tory campaign never seemed to
:34:03. > :34:08.take off. They began in a good position, then it got worse for
:34:08. > :34:14.them. What did take off, and gathered momentum as it went was
:34:14. > :34:17.UKIP. It became a surge, some senior Liberal Democrats who were
:34:17. > :34:20.down campaigning there said the real, the wise thing the Liberal
:34:20. > :34:24.Democrats did was having this on the 28th. Having a short campaign f
:34:24. > :34:31.this had been on for another week the UKIP surge could have been big
:34:31. > :34:34.enough to win. I don't know. I mean, the UKIP did have a surges but
:34:34. > :34:40.equally, UKIP weren't exposed to the kind of debate and scrutiny
:34:40. > :34:45.they would have been if people had been anticipating a UKIP surge, so
:34:45. > :34:51.they, at one level had an easy ride, but equally they had momentum going,
:34:51. > :34:54.as you know, in by-elections, momentum can often be very
:34:54. > :34:58.significant over a very short period. One way or another. I think
:34:58. > :35:03.we could have pulled it back and had a better result, but equally,
:35:03. > :35:09.it is very volatile times. Americans in primary campaigning
:35:09. > :35:13.call it is big Mo. We have been the Ben officialry of it in the past.
:35:13. > :35:16.If you go back to a by-election like Darlington, some time ago, we
:35:16. > :35:22.have been the losers when we started fauf a strong position and
:35:22. > :35:28.the surge has worked against us, for us, the great relief is we
:35:28. > :35:30.fought the by-election on local strength and national competence. A
:35:31. > :35:35.very significant proportion of people went with that, despite the
:35:35. > :35:40.head wind we have been talking about. Where does this leave
:35:40. > :35:44.relations inside the coalition, does it on the one hand reassure
:35:44. > :35:49.Liberal Democrats that they can stay in the coalition and still win
:35:49. > :35:55.and don't face a wipe out, is that the view now, or is there some
:35:55. > :35:59.resentment that Tory allied in the press, made all the running they
:35:59. > :36:03.could, probably encouraged behind the scenes by Tories, to make it as
:36:03. > :36:06.grim as possible for Mr Clegg, in the middle of the Chris Rennard
:36:06. > :36:11.crisis? The way that the press have behaved is completely predictable,
:36:11. > :36:15.so we are not going to be phased by the fact that the Daily Mail
:36:15. > :36:19.behaves like the Daily Mail. Relations in the coalition are good,
:36:19. > :36:23.I am involved in making it work in the House of Lords. It has not
:36:23. > :36:29.always been that good as Tam Strathclyde told news the House of
:36:29. > :36:31.Lords. Within and between parties, there are arguments and
:36:32. > :36:36.disagreements... Is there some resentment at the way some Liberal
:36:36. > :36:43.Democrats have said to us, they felt the story -- Tories were
:36:43. > :36:47.whipping up the row over Chris Rennard, and pinning it on Mr Clegg.
:36:47. > :36:51.I don't think, so because I think we think, or I think, that it
:36:51. > :36:56.wasn't the Tory high command whipping it up, it were a small
:36:56. > :37:01.number of newspapers who were using it, explicitly in some case, to try
:37:01. > :37:05.and stop the Leveson proposals going through. They said it in
:37:05. > :37:10.their... We have that newspaper here, the Daily Mail. I would like
:37:10. > :37:13.to point out, this story broke on Channel 4, the Guardian newspaper
:37:13. > :37:17.if you like of the airwaves. They continue to make a lot of head way
:37:17. > :37:20.on that story, and more and more of these women came for warned talked
:37:20. > :37:30.to newspapers. I know Nick Clegg thinks it is not the job of the
:37:30. > :37:31.
:37:31. > :37:37.I think it is our job that and we will continue to do so. Whether it
:37:37. > :37:41.is Tory, liberal or Labour. We have a properly appointed detective
:37:41. > :37:45.looking at it. If it was left to you it wouldn't have. The women
:37:45. > :37:51.involved decided to go to the police. It happened because they
:37:51. > :37:55.decided to go to press because they had gone to your party and got no
:37:55. > :38:00.satisfaction. A number of the women who have come forward hadn't gone
:38:00. > :38:03.to the party. A number have and didn't get any satisfaction that is
:38:03. > :38:09.why we have set in place an investigation and why the police
:38:09. > :38:13.are looking at it. Gabby?. I wonder how you think this will affect
:38:13. > :38:17.coalition relations in another way. The Tories are under pressure to
:38:17. > :38:20.move towards UKIP, move towards European immigration, do you think
:38:20. > :38:26.that will put strain on the coalition in a different way, you
:38:26. > :38:30.will find yourselves pulling in a direction you don't want to go?
:38:30. > :38:34.They cause stresses and strains but both sides went into it for five
:38:34. > :38:41.years to sort out the economic mess, there are stresses and strans and
:38:41. > :38:45.that is what we will attempt to do, as best we can. Were you aware of
:38:45. > :38:49.the years of the accusations of being made against Chris Rennard?
:38:49. > :38:55.was not aware of any specific allegation about Chris Rennard,
:38:55. > :38:59.until very very recently. What about general accusations of his
:38:59. > :39:04.behaviour? Well, there are, there are rumours about most people in
:39:04. > :39:09.politics, in my experience, and most of them, proved to be
:39:09. > :39:14.unfounded. I never was aware of any serious allegations against Chris
:39:14. > :39:20.Rennard, until recently. You had heard of rumours of his behaviour?
:39:20. > :39:24.There was some about. Turned out to be more than scuttle butt. Neither
:39:24. > :39:28.I or most people, if not virtually everyone were wear of the exact
:39:28. > :39:31.nature of the complaints against Chris. I wasn't. Do you regretture
:39:31. > :39:40.partyty did not do more at the time snfpblts I think it should have
:39:40. > :39:45.done, more, yes. -- done more, yes. One party appears to be trying to
:39:45. > :39:49.lie low, but what does last night's result mean for Labour? Their
:39:49. > :39:52.celebrity candidate John O'Farrell finished fourth, with just over
:39:52. > :39:57.4,000 votes and just under 10% vote share, while the combined
:39:57. > :40:01.Conservative and Liberal Democrat share of the vote fell by 28%,
:40:01. > :40:05.Labour were hardly the beneficiaries. Their share of the
:40:05. > :40:10.vote increased by just 0.2%. Speaking earlier, Labour leader Ed
:40:10. > :40:13.Miliband said it was disappointing for Labour. 6 I would have
:40:13. > :40:19.preferred to get more votes than we did. This was going to be a tough
:40:19. > :40:23.fight for Labour. It's a seat we have never won, but all it convince
:40:23. > :40:28.me of is we need to redouble or evidents to reach out to every part
:40:28. > :40:32.of the country, including areas where Labour hasn't been strong.
:40:32. > :40:35.This us with a disastrous night for the Conservatives and David Cameron.
:40:35. > :40:38.What we want to hear is a recognition people are deeply
:40:38. > :40:41.unhappy the direction of the country and he is going to listen.
:40:41. > :40:45.Labour leader Ed Milliband. We asked the Labour Party for an
:40:45. > :40:49.interview and we have been busy all morning, we can vouch for that
:40:49. > :40:53.asking MPs to come on to the programme. Must have been through
:40:53. > :40:59.every one of them, none were available. Sorry about that. Not
:40:59. > :41:03.even Diane Abbott? No, it seems. Gabby, the question that I would
:41:03. > :41:06.have put to Labour s that if you have had a fall in the combined
:41:06. > :41:10.share of the vote of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives of 28%,
:41:11. > :41:17.and as the Labour Party, you increase your vote share by 0.2%,
:41:17. > :41:20.something has the gone wrong.Ly my best to answer this, yes, it is
:41:20. > :41:24.a disaster, I don't think, I don't think the Labour Party can take any
:41:24. > :41:34.comfort from this result at all, so much for one nation Labour, really.
:41:34. > :41:35.
:41:35. > :41:45.. They were going to be squeezed but they didn't have to be squeezed
:41:45. > :41:47.
:41:47. > :41:53.that far, Labour has to be careful That badly when it comes to the
:41:53. > :41:56.crunch something is wrong, that lead is as soft as marshmallow.
:41:56. > :41:59.we had been focuses on what the Conservatives have to do to win an
:42:00. > :42:03.overall imaginety, Eastleigh would have been a target seat, Labour has
:42:03. > :42:09.to make inroads into southern heartlands, it can't rely on
:42:09. > :42:13.increasing its vote share, in seats its already has. It is right. There
:42:13. > :42:17.is no progress at all. I think John O'Farrell was the wrong candidate,
:42:17. > :42:22.for various reason, he unravelled rather some stuff he had written
:42:22. > :42:26.about Margaret Thatcher, he wish she had died in The Brighton Bomb
:42:26. > :42:30.and he didn't think Britain shouldn't have won the Falklands
:42:30. > :42:34.war. A lot of the task force ships set sail from Southampton, so he
:42:34. > :42:38.was a bad candidate, still, the Labour message is not playing on
:42:38. > :42:41.the doorstep, and Labour MPs, I saw a couple last night. They said they
:42:41. > :42:45.heard they would be in fourth, they were unhappy about it. And the
:42:45. > :42:48.record on the economy, is that still the problem, is that
:42:48. > :42:52.narrative playing with the electorate from David Cameron and
:42:52. > :42:57.George Osborne swag are blaming Labour for what happened? You get a
:42:57. > :43:00.sense Michael Gove said he thought the primary reason for Tory voertsd
:43:00. > :43:06.going was feeling very squeeze, skint, annoyed with Government and
:43:06. > :43:10.the ve, in which case why don't they move to party complaining
:43:10. > :43:13.about austerity. The fact they didn't people think the previous
:43:13. > :43:17.Government screwed up the economy and they voted for the only people
:43:17. > :43:22.who haven't had a chance to screw it up yet, that suggestings people
:43:22. > :43:26.have not forgiven and moved on. you think they didn't try hard
:43:26. > :43:29.enough, Labour, was there is a sense of let us let the internal
:43:29. > :43:34.grief between the coalition partners play out John O'Farrell,
:43:34. > :43:39.right, wrong candidate? We don't care. I think they fought and that
:43:39. > :43:45.is why Ed Miliband went. They threw a lot at it and put John O'Farrell
:43:45. > :43:50.everywhere, no, they wanted to do well there. Is it not likely, that
:43:50. > :43:57.in a general election, Labour would do better in the south and although
:43:57. > :44:03.they wouldn't pick up seats like Eastleigh, they could, I Anna
:44:03. > :44:08.Soubry said... They can't take her seat. They are likely to do better.
:44:08. > :44:11.Eastleigh is not a good guide. It is an unusual Liberal Democrat held
:44:11. > :44:15.marginal. Their main worry is taking seats off for fli, that they
:44:15. > :44:20.should do better than in Eastleigh. It is not a complete guide but it
:44:20. > :44:24.should worry them none the Les. is that one nation Labour going
:44:24. > :44:28.down, did anybody quote that to you? I don't recall hearing it. I
:44:28. > :44:31.think lit go the same way as David Cameron's big society. Does anybody
:44:31. > :44:37.mention that any more. Haven't heard it for a whie. Isn't the
:44:37. > :44:40.Daily Mail not one of the losers? It is the biggest read newspaper in
:44:40. > :44:45.the Eastleigh constituency. You have the biggest circulation of any
:44:45. > :44:49.daily newspaper and you ran day after day, against Mr Clegg, on the
:44:49. > :44:55.front-page, and they still won. don't think we are a loser at all.
:44:55. > :44:58.I think the voters in Eastleigh ig nored the noise off and decided
:44:59. > :45:02.they would vote on local issue, they are good at it, the Liberal
:45:02. > :45:05.Democrats, Anna Soubry had a good point. I think if we had our time
:45:05. > :45:15.again the Mail would have done it again. Nick Clegg behaved badly in
:45:15. > :45:19.
:45:19. > :45:24.So, an exciting by-election in Eastleigh last night, but where
:45:24. > :45:29.does it fit into the pantheon in this country - not all countries
:45:29. > :45:32.have by-elections, but this country has by-elections, and we have had
:45:32. > :45:37.many great by-elections in the past. As we say at the Oscars, this film
:45:37. > :45:41.contains flash photography. So say bye-bye, Eastleigh by-
:45:41. > :45:45.election, because it is not pie-in- the-sky to say you will miss it.
:45:45. > :45:49.You see, these are isolated political contests, soaring outside
:45:49. > :45:53.the confines of the general election cycle, can make, briefly,
:45:53. > :45:58.a tiny place you had never heard of funds will -- characters you had
:45:58. > :46:03.never seen before front page news. They can test the political waters,
:46:03. > :46:13.signal a sea change and hand you the unexpected. Sceptical? Let me
:46:13. > :46:13.
:46:13. > :46:18.refresh your memories. From sheer surprise, Orpington in Kent, a
:46:18. > :46:23.safely won Conservative seat in 1959, a by-election in 1962 saw a
:46:23. > :46:28.massive 22% swing to the Liberals, who had been down-and-out in 1951
:46:28. > :46:33.at 2.5% of the vote. Not bad for Eric Lubbock, a local councillor
:46:33. > :46:36.who was only the candidate after the Liberal who had stood in 1959
:46:36. > :46:41.was forced to step aside after admitting bigamy. Orpington man
:46:41. > :46:46.would not have approved. Baroness today, Shirley Williams back in
:46:46. > :46:51.1981 took Crosby with a similar Shockwave as the SDP, newly-founded,
:46:51. > :46:56.found it had an MP. There is not a single safe seat left in the
:46:56. > :47:01.country. A higher mark for the SDP, but nine years later in brutal
:47:01. > :47:05.after a merger of the Liberals and most SDP members as the Lib Dems,
:47:05. > :47:10.those who had stayed separate had a nasty shock as the News of the time
:47:10. > :47:14.pointed out. The other fragments of speech after the Lions who
:47:14. > :47:17.disagreed with the merger were represented in Bootle.
:47:17. > :47:21.The Liberal least avoiding the indignity suffered by the SDP, who
:47:21. > :47:25.were beaten by the Monster Raving Loony Party. Screaming Lord Sutch
:47:25. > :47:30.immediately offered an electoral pact to the SDP. One of the biggest
:47:30. > :47:34.swings in by-election history was Bermondsey in 1983, won by Lib Dem
:47:34. > :47:38.Simon Hughes against Labour's Peter Tatchell, a fight that has become
:47:38. > :47:43.as famous for the controversial nature of the campaign as for the
:47:43. > :47:48.margin of victory. The tragedy of this election is
:47:48. > :47:54.that prejudice and bigotry triumphed over tolerance and
:47:54. > :47:58.compassion, and smears and lies triumphed over truth and reason.
:47:58. > :48:01.has not been a dirty campaign as far as we are concerned. We fought
:48:01. > :48:07.a straight campaign from the beginning on the same issues before
:48:07. > :48:11.they chose their candidate. In 2008, Labour activists in Crewe and
:48:11. > :48:14.Nantwich, defending the seat held for so long by the late and
:48:14. > :48:19.formidable Gwyneth Dunwoody, struck up a jolly wheeze to paint the
:48:19. > :48:23.Conservative as rather posh. Most observers now suggest that it
:48:23. > :48:30.helped boot the well heeled Timson into Parliament and signalled what
:48:30. > :48:36.was to come for Gordon Brown. have sent a message, loud and clear,
:48:36. > :48:39.that Gordon Brown just does not get it. Firmly enough, posh did come
:48:39. > :48:44.back as a campaign tactic after David Cameron got into power. But
:48:44. > :48:47.in Bradford West, they were never going to win. It was Labour
:48:47. > :48:54.territory and most strategists assured us that Labour would hold,
:48:54. > :49:01.which is why Labour were a bit surprised by this. This, the most
:49:01. > :49:08.sensational result in British by- election history, bar none,
:49:08. > :49:11.represents the Bradford spring. This is an uprising.
:49:11. > :49:16.George Galloway, ending their report dramatically.
:49:16. > :49:20.Now, is the BBC too wasteful? Some politicians think it is and one
:49:20. > :49:24.Conservative MP is introducing a bill to make the BBC publish any
:49:24. > :49:28.invoice over �500 and hand over all its accounts to an independent body.
:49:28. > :49:32.In a moment, we will speak to Alun Cairns about his private member's
:49:32. > :49:35.bill. First, let's look at how a lack of information from the BBC
:49:35. > :49:39.has frustrated some MPs on the Public Accounts Committee back in
:49:39. > :49:43.November. I hope he will understand why this
:49:43. > :49:46.exchange is unsatisfactory. Many of the questions I am asking you, we
:49:46. > :49:52.would already have the answers to if the National Audit Office were
:49:52. > :49:56.able to operate the way been -- the way they normally operate. We would
:49:56. > :50:03.have understood all this and be further ahead. I understand your
:50:03. > :50:07.frustration. Good, because we have been trying to make this point.
:50:07. > :50:12.understand the frustrations and to do with the weight things operate
:50:12. > :50:16.for everyone. It is what it is, and I have to work within that. I am
:50:16. > :50:21.trying to be as helpful as I can be. I am happy to go on as long as you
:50:21. > :50:25.need me here. The problem is that we can't ask the right questions,
:50:25. > :50:29.because we don't have the right data on which to base those
:50:29. > :50:36.questions. I come back to the conflict of interest. You are in
:50:36. > :50:40.essence the deal-maker, the regulator, and you are also
:50:40. > :50:45.controlling both information. That seems a conflict of interest.
:50:45. > :50:47.have had this discussion many times. Actually, it is down to Parliament
:50:47. > :50:53.to decide it does not want to have a royal charter arrangement with
:50:53. > :50:57.the BBC. It is in your control to change the arrangements, not mine.
:50:57. > :51:01.Let's speak to Alun Cairns about his bill tackling accountability in
:51:01. > :51:04.the BBC. What do you want to know? You will recall that after the
:51:04. > :51:09.change of government in 2010, all local authorities were expected to
:51:09. > :51:13.publish every invoice in excess of �500. That has changed habits
:51:13. > :51:18.within local authorities across the UK. I want the same to happen to
:51:18. > :51:23.the BBC. But is the BBC like a local authority? The BBC spends
:51:23. > :51:27.public money. The licence fee is the greatest regressive tax in the
:51:27. > :51:31.UK. It raises �3 billion, and we have a right to know where it is
:51:31. > :51:37.being spent. Many examples have been exposed by the Daily Mail and
:51:37. > :51:43.other papers, where maybe 170 staff are sent to cover US presidential
:51:43. > :51:48.elections. Fortunes are spent on accommodation or taxi fares or
:51:48. > :51:51.hospitality or retirement parties. We have a right to know how much is
:51:51. > :51:57.being spent. The BBC would say it fully complies with public
:51:57. > :52:03.procurement rules. It does appear before select committees on a
:52:03. > :52:08.regular basis. Talent pay is published annually. Critics would
:52:08. > :52:12.say you are just trying to pick at the BBC here. And not at all. BBC
:52:12. > :52:16.journalists rightly scrutinised the expenditure of every MP, local
:52:16. > :52:20.authorities and departments of government. It is right that that
:52:20. > :52:27.is done. But I also think the public have a right to scrutinise
:52:27. > :52:37.public money, �3 billion of it, and to establish where the waste is. It
:52:37. > :52:38.
:52:38. > :52:47.would help the BBC. There is an expectation from the public to
:52:47. > :52:52.analyse, and I am doing this as a friend of the BBC. Good to know! In
:52:52. > :52:57.terms of what you are trying to gain from this waste that use
:52:57. > :53:01.exists in the BBC, what are you looking to cut out? How much do you
:53:01. > :53:06.think the BBC is wasting? That is precisely the point, because we
:53:06. > :53:10.don't know and will not know until the data is published. Then we can
:53:10. > :53:14.make an informed choice. At the moment, we are left to make a
:53:14. > :53:19.judgement about 170 staff going to cover presidential elections. That
:53:19. > :53:23.may or may not be the right number. We also have competition sometimes
:53:23. > :53:28.between journalists, where they will not share resources when they
:53:28. > :53:31.could. If we see every invoice in excess of �500, we can make a
:53:31. > :53:36.judgment and that might concentrate the mind more among the BBC
:53:36. > :53:40.managers. Do you accept that the BBC does operate in a predominantly
:53:40. > :53:44.commercial sector? It could be placed at a competitive
:53:44. > :53:49.disadvantage with commercial rivals if they had to publish everything
:53:49. > :53:53.over �500. They obviously negotiate deals which could be better value
:53:53. > :53:58.for the taxpayer. I think transparency would drive that
:53:58. > :54:02.further, where by a competitor who could provide a similar service
:54:02. > :54:05.could see how much was being paid and say, I could undercut that. It
:54:05. > :54:08.is standard practice to be transparent these days, and the BBC
:54:08. > :54:11.is the only organisation that is not transparent as other
:54:11. > :54:17.departments off. A bit not be expensive and bureaucratic to
:54:17. > :54:22.publish every invoice over �500? local authority did it on a
:54:22. > :54:25.voluntary basis and it has changed the habits and save them an awful
:54:25. > :54:30.lot of money. Before, they travelled first class. Now they
:54:30. > :54:37.think, does it need to be that way? Before they take a taxi, they
:54:37. > :54:41.question the way they go about business. Do you think, as a
:54:41. > :54:49.journalist, would you like to know? I am sure it would be fascinating
:54:49. > :54:52.to sift through every �502 invoice. No. You would end up with a lot of
:54:52. > :54:57.invoices for �499.99. Secondly, what would shock me about BBC
:54:57. > :55:00.spending would not be those kinds of numbers. It is when you pay
:55:01. > :55:08.people six figures to leave the BBC. It is the huge pay-offs, the amount
:55:08. > :55:14.of money spent on every on-air talent. Obviously, the amount spent
:55:14. > :55:16.on you, Andrew, would not shock me. A BBC talent issue is brought.
:55:16. > :55:21.Viewers would accept that BBC talent are the main presenters and
:55:21. > :55:31.so on, but it goes beyond that. And because that is not subject to
:55:31. > :55:34.
:55:34. > :55:39.transparency rules, it is something they can hide. It does not go far
:55:39. > :55:42.enough. Auditing is the second part of the bill. The BBC is the only
:55:42. > :55:45.public sector organisation that sets the terms of investigation by
:55:45. > :55:54.the National Audit Office. If any other government department wanted
:55:54. > :55:58.to do that, journalists would rightly complaining. We are purring
:55:58. > :56:08.with pleasure and the Daily Mail. We think this is a tremendous idea.
:56:08. > :56:10.
:56:10. > :56:13.Tell me something I don't know! wonder if we can find out how many
:56:13. > :56:21.people the BBC employees. If you put the question to them, they
:56:21. > :56:24.can't tell you. I around 24,000, I think. We don't know, that is the
:56:24. > :56:27.point. The BBC needs to accept standards where the public sector
:56:27. > :56:31.is expected to be transparent so that people can make their own
:56:31. > :56:39.judgment. There might not be inefficient expenditure, but we
:56:39. > :56:47.simply don't know. Alun Cairns, you are a friend of the BBC's(!).
:56:47. > :56:51.Here are my invoices for over �500 from 2012. I am impressed. That now
:56:51. > :56:58.satisfies me that there is no waste on the part of Andrew Neil. But you
:56:58. > :57:04.have not seen mine. Now, anyone remember political life
:57:04. > :57:13.before last night's by-election? I don't know. Here is the rest of the
:57:13. > :57:17.week's political news in 60 seconds. To play - not a Scousers saying
:57:17. > :57:21.hello, it is the credit rating the UK used to have until the ratings
:57:21. > :57:26.agency Moody's downgraded us. The Chancellor said it was proved his
:57:26. > :57:29.economic strategy is working - eh? The allegation of harassment
:57:29. > :57:33.against Lib Dem Lord Rennard, who has always denied it, turned into a
:57:33. > :57:39.leadership crisis for Nick Clegg, when he struggled to explain what
:57:39. > :57:43.he knew, when. These concerns about Lord Rennard's inappropriate
:57:43. > :57:48.behaviour were circulating at the time. And we found out who will
:57:49. > :57:53.form the next government of Italy - no one. Everyone got a few votes,
:57:53. > :57:55.but the star was comedian cum politician Beppe Grillo. Finally to
:57:55. > :57:58.City Hall, where procedural shenanigans led to Boris Johnson
:57:58. > :58:04.almost being checked out of a committee meeting. The mayor was
:58:04. > :58:14.his usual understated self. Are you saying they haven't the guts to put
:58:14. > :58:15.
:58:15. > :58:20.questions to me? Supine invertebrate jellies.
:58:20. > :58:26.He is the Beppe Grillo of British politics. We have run out of time.
:58:26. > :58:31.Thanks to both of you for being our guests of the day. The One O'clock
:58:31. > :58:35.News is starting on BBC One. More on the fall-out from the Eastleigh
:58:35. > :58:41.by-election. I will be back on BBC One on Sunday with The Sunday